Inorganic world

“ The whole of the inorganic world is subject to him just as much as the organic. If a body falls fifteen feet in the first second in empty space, if three atoms of oxygen unite with one atom of sulphur to form sulphuric acid, if the angle that is formed by the contiguous surfaces of a column of rock-crystal is always 120 degrees, these phenomena are just as truly the direct action of God as the flowering of the plant, the movement of the animal, or the thought of man. ”

“ There are some eighty-odd chemical elements on the earth to-day: are they all the outcome of an inorganic evolution, element giving rise to element, going back and back to some primeval [Pg 266] stuff from which they were all originally derived infinitely long ago? Is there an evolution in the inorganic world which may be going on, parallel to that of the evolution of living things; or is organic evolution a continuation of inorganic evolution? We have seen what evidence there is of this inorganic evolution in the case of the stars. ”

“ It is the compounding, in the organic world, of forces belonging equally to the inorganic, that constitutes the mystery and the miracle of vitality. Every portion of every animal body may be reduced to purely inorganic matter. A perfect reversal of this process of reduction would carry us from the inorganic to the organic; and such a reversal is at least conceivable. The tendency, indeed, of modern science is to break down the wall of partition between organic and inorganic, and to reduce both to the operation of forces which are the same in kind, but which are differently compounded. ”

“ So unwilling, however, are most men to relinquish old notions, that the resources of chemistry have been called in, to ascertain the supposed difference between organic and inorganic matter: it being asserted, that, in the organic world, there is a greater complexity of molecular combination, than in the inorganic. ”

“ The negative, as such, always depends upon the positive. The inorganic world, as such, depends upon the organic, that is, the inorganic world is only such in contrast with the organic. If there were no organs, real or imagined, the world might consist of stones and water, or whatever other elements might be blended with these, but the word inorganic would never be applied to it. ”

“ Here, however, without entering on moot questions, we may draw the à priori conclusion that these earliest living things were double-natured, in so far that they must have had the ability to assimilate from the inorganic world all the materials of which protoplasm consists—must therefore, along with the power of appropriating carbon from its gaseous compound, also have had the power of appropriating nitrogen, either from one of its combined oxides or directly from the air with which water is more or less charged. ”

“ Its bones become mere carbonate and phosphate of lime; the matter of its flesh, and of its other parts, becomes, in the long run, converted into carbonic acid, into water, and into ammonia. You will now, perhaps, understand the curious relation of the animal with the plant, of the organic with the inorganic world, which is shown in this diagram (Fig. 3) . ”

“ Or, on the other hand, the organic units, like the crystalline units of inorganic bodies, form the organism by dint of similar inherent qualities, form in fact a living being possessed of all its inherent properties, as soon as certain chemical compounds are placed under certain physical conditions. If the former opinion be {116}true, then we must clearly understand that there exists naturally a break in the sequence of evolution, a chasm between the organic and the inorganic world never to be bridged over. ”

“ If all things in the material world are causally related, if all phenomena proceed on natural principles, organisms which are formed of and decay into the same matter must have been derived originally from inorganic compounds.”
The original oneness of the two, the fact that the organic sprang from the inorganic, is shown by the cousinly closeness of the lowest organic with the highest inorganic substances. The monera are suggestive of crystals in their uniformity of structure. ”

“ They become conjoined, numerically and morphologically, in progressive grades of complexity, originating by one kind of alliance the chemical elements which constitute the organic world, and by another the vital elements, which form the protoplasmic basis of animal and plant life. [1053] The organic kingdom rests upon the inorganic, and preys upon it, evolving 285 itself throughout endless time into more highly differentiated forms by its incessant appetite for material acquisition and sensuous stimulation in its environment. ”

“ It is an ascent of matter from the lowermost grade of an inert substance, through the intermediate grades of vegetative and animal life, up to the culminating and ultimate term of material perfection, in the partial constitution of a human nature and personality, in the concurrence as a coagent in vegetative and sensile functions, and in the indirect participation, as instrument, in the higher psychic functions of rational thought and volition.
At the present time, the inorganic world is clearly the exclusive source of all the matter found in living beings. ”

“ It is clear if organic bodies were built up of chemical compounds of small complexity and great stability that this continuous range of chemical reactions, this unceasing metabolism, could not take place. It is therefore a necessary condition for organic substances that they should be built up of chemical compounds that are most complex and unstable. “Exactly those substances which are most important for life possess a very high molecular weight, and consequently very large molecules, in comparison with inorganic matter. ”

“ It was formerly supposed that the substances found in plants and animals, mostly complex compounds of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, could only be produced by "vital forces." If this were true it meant that chemistry was limited to the mineral kingdom and to the extraction of such carbon compounds as happened to exist ready formed in the vegetable and animal kingdoms. But fortunately this barrier to human achievement proved purely illusory. The organic field, once man had broken into it, proved easier to work in than the inorganic. ”

“ In the fact that living creatures always consist of the four elements, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon, we have a fundamental character whereby the organic and inorganic (or non-living) worlds are to be [pg 360] distinguished, for as we have seen, inorganic bodies, instead of being thus uniformly constituted, may consist of the most diverse elements and sometimes of but two or even of only one. ”

“ Organic nature to the modern interpreter is thus alive through and through. In his view atom and molecule are also alive in a subordinate, elemental degree. Indeed, he thinks, it is their life borne in air, water and food which in plant or animal rises to new planes of dignity. He looks afresh at the broken alum crystal which repairs itself in a solution, and sees there the removal of the imaginary fence which long divided organic nature from inorganic. ”

“ Now, if as fast as each particle is set free by putrefaction in a fluid or gaseous state, a particle equally minute of carbonate of lime, flint, or other mineral is at hand and ready to be precipitated, we may imagine this inorganic matter to take the place just before left unoccupied by the organic molecule. ”

“ It must not be understood that this force, which I finally came to control, annihilated matter; it merely annihilated form. Nor, as I soon discovered, had it any effect on inorganic structure; but to all organic form it was absolutely fatal. This partiality puzzled me at first, though had I stopped to think deeper I would have seen through it. Since the number of atoms in organic molecules is far greater than in the most complex mineral molecules, organic compounds are characterized by their instability and the ease with which they are split up by physical forces and chemical reagents. ”

“ The chemist might go on continually manufacturing hydrogen and oxygen, carbon dioxide, ammonia. But he was never to hope to make alcohol, sugar, urea, any of the multitudinous substances called organic. And now all this folly of forbidding is at an end. The organic bodies are manufactured by man. The inorganic and the organic are no more regarded as clearly distinguishable. Even the chemistry books by their very titles recognise and proclaim this fact. We have no longer works on organic chemistry. We have volumes on the chemistry of carbon compounds. ”

“ If he examine, in like manner, a lump of earth or rock, he will perceive no such structure. To mark this distinction, the parts of animals and vegetables, either living or dead—whether entire or in a state of decay, are called organic bodies, while earthy and stony substances are called inorganic bodies.
Organic substances are also more or less readily burned and dissipated by heat in the open air; inorganic substances are generally fixed and permanent in the fire. ”

“ In the classification of this science, it has been divided into inorganic chemistry, relating to metals, minerals and bodies not associated with organic life, and organic chemistry, which was formerly limited to matter associated with or the result of growth or life processes, but which is now extended to the broader field of all carbon compounds. ”

“ Chemistry divides creation into two distinct parts,—organic nature, and inorganic nature. Organic nature, comprising as it does all animal and vegetable creations which show an organization more or less perfect,—or, to be more exact, a greater or lesser motive power, which gives more or less sensibility,—is, undoubtedly, the more important part of our earth. Now, analysis has reduced all the products of this nature to four simple substances, namely: three gases, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, and another simple substance, non-metallic and solid, carbon. ”

“ But what of life itself? The question of the derivation of organic from inorganic matter has proved insoluble by direct means, and the case of naturalism must here rest upon such facts as the chemical homogeneity of these two kinds of matter, and the conformity of physiological processes to more general physical laws. Organic matter differs from inorganic only through the presence of proteid, a peculiar product of known elements, which cannot be artificially [247] produced, but which is by natural means perpetually dissolved into these elements without any discoverable residuum. ”

“ Darwin's views aside, the whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so complete and crushing an argument against the intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes, in the production of all the phenomena of the universe; that, in view of the intimate relations between Man and the rest of the living world; and between the forces exerted by the latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature's great progression, from the formless to the formed—from the inorganic to the organic—from blind force to conscious intellect and will. ”

“ By means of the electric furnace, Moissan, in France, has succeeded in uniting carbon with many of the metallic elements, and thus opened the path for new achievements in passing directly from inorganic to organic compounds.
202 The progress of chemical synthesis has already blotted out the old distinction between inorganic and organic chemistry, and we can no longer say of organic bodies that they are the products of living cells. Organic bodies are those which contain a carbon or other elementary skeleton, to which are attached the elements or groups of elements forming the complete body. ”

“ This chlorophyl-tinged protoplasm is the substratum in which carbonic acid is deprived of its oxygen, and organically incorporated. Here, and here alone, organic substance originates in Nature. [1] It is the one magic gate through which the inorganic effects its passage into the organic; the one transubstantiating medium by which the death-like spell of inertness is broken and the dormant energies of matter admitted to bloom forth into life. ”

“ It regards inorganic matter as the source of organic life not merely in the sense of a passive cause, out of which the primordial forms of life were produced, but in the sense of an active cause inasmuch as it ascribes the origin of life to the exclusive agency of dynamic principles inherent in inorganic matter, namely, the physicochemical energies that are native to mineral matter. ”

“ A living thing, which is not galvanic, is a nonentity.
888. With galvanism consequently the first step has been made out of the inorganic into the organic kingdom. Every aught of nature, which has hitherto originated, is inorganic. These, however, were mere individualities. The character of the Inorganic consists consequently in something being a Singular, a moiety, or a metatype of a Singular; the character of the Organic in its being the metatype of a whole or round number. Organic things are internal self-exciting numbers; the inorganic things are fractions. ”

“ To-day many of these organic substances are produced in the laboratory from inorganic materials. In the past history of the globe it is easy to imagine conditions which would facilitate the synthesis of organic substances without the interposition of life. ”

“ Putting pre-conceptions aside, we find nothing more than a group of phenomena continually complicating under the influence of the same original factors; and we see that our conventional division is defensible only on grounds of convenience. Let us advance a stage. As the Earth’s surface continues to cool, passing through all degrees of temperature by infinitesimal gradations, the formation of more and more complex inorganic compounds becomes possible. ”